With society's increasing impact on and reliance on the ocean there is an increasing need for information from areas that are difficult to access. Large unmanned vehicles (drones) may be employed for aquatic access, but their size and expense often preclude their use in challenging areas such as the near-shore region where crashing surf and shallow waters threaten vehicle safety.
Thus, there is a need for a beach-deployable, surf-survivable water drone that can access the ocean within the first few hundred meters of the shoreline.